Scars (reworked)
by OnyxCryLotus
Summary: College AU with Riku and Xion as the main pairing. I posted this story back in 2010 or so, and after a few years of leaving it alone I decided to re-write it. Please forgive my grammar and typographical errors, english isn't my first language. Rated T probably for language and a few other things.
1. Chapter 1

It's hot.

It's really hot in here.

The AC just broke down last week so classes have to make do, and it sucks balls. The young black haired girl lifts her head and checks the clock. Two more minutes. Just two more minutes. She sighs audibly as she lets her head sink on her arms, that were spread out on the table. She closed her eyes and listened to the teacher saying that it was going to be all for this class, and went back on a few dates to make sure that everyone got them down. As soon as he dismissed the class, Xion took her bags and started walking to the door. Yes, the hallway is colder than this burning classroom for sure!

"Wait, Xion!"

A voice stopped her in her steps as she turned around to face one of her classmates. She was as tall as her and had the exact same haircut, although her hair was longer and of a different color. With a bright smile she approached Xion, her childhood friends Sora and Riku following her.

"We need to decide when we'll meet for the project! And separate the parts too."

Right. They had decided in teams for the project during today's class. She didn't know anyone and decided to leave it to someone to approach her, but was surprised when Riku walked over to her desk to invite her into their little three musketeer trio. She felt she was intruding the moment she took her chair to sit with them, but also felt warm inside watching them talk with each other.

"Okay. We shouldn't do that in there though." Xion answered the redhead after her friends manage to swerve their way through the desks to join them. Kairi looked behind her as she giggled.

"Agreed. Should we go eat at the cafeteria then?"

"Sure!" Sora beamed. "You're coming too right, Xion?"

"Yeah." she nod, before turning on her heel and walking out of the classroom. She closed her eyes and let the cold air that was circulating in the hallway hit her before taking another step. God she hated heat. She looked above her shoulder to see if they were following her, and waited for the three to join her outside the classroom.

She hasn't seen them since elementary school, which honestly made it a little hard to talk to them. She knew them, remembered them, and they remembered her, but her name and face only. She didn't do much back then, except stand there and sometimes talk. She had good grades, but then again that wasn't hard in elementary. Them, on the other hand, were quite popular. Kairi was known as a lovable and bubbly girl, which she still is, and was adorable before puberty hit her and made her pretty. Riku was the cool one, that girls would talk about almost whenever they could and basically could do anything, regardless of if he put his mind to it or not. Sora he, was quite a unique kid. There weren't many things he was good at, but no matter what happened he managed to laugh it off. His smile back then was contagious. Still is.

They walked to the cafeteria, Xion's face twitching as she heard the noise of so many people talking at the same time. She hated coming here to eat. She's done it a few times before in her past sessions at this school, however every time she didn't find the appetite to eat due to the people around her. It's not that they were talking about her or about something that made her lose her appetite, but they all spoke so _loudly_. It was irritating when someone screamed beside her to talk to someone that wasn't even a foot away. Then, a miracle happened. Lea, one of Xion's close friends, started working at the student cafeteria and told her to stop by on her second session. She's never set foot in the school cafeteria again since, except on Thursdays when it was less crowded. She still went to eat at the student cafeteria though.

Luckily today was a Thursday, so she bought what she wanted to eat and followed the trio at a table near the windows.

"Alright, time to do this!" Kairi said, flapping her notebook open on her table. "We already chose the story, so now all we have to do is read it while having our assigned parts in mind. This is all due in three weeks, so Sora, you better not slack off!"

"As long as you read the book with me, I'm sure I'll manage." the boy grinned back goofily. Riku sighed at his behaviour.

"Will you be able to finish the book in two weeks, Xion?" Kairi asked, making all three pair of eyes settle on her. She was eating slowly and silently, but she swallowed quick once she saw she had to say something.

"Yeah. I've read the story before so it's okay."

"Really? I didn't picture you as someone who would read Poe."

"My father has many of his collections. I coincidentally came across them and read them is all."

"Oh, so your father likes Edgar Allan Poe!" she giggled. "That makes more sense."

Her father, Even, was a brilliant scientist well renowned in his field. He's been known for the prizes he's won in his young age and to this day hasn't stopped creating. He's never concentrated too much on taking care of his inventions and belongings much though. And when he feels he's close to something he neglects sleep and meals until he finds his answer, which honestly is hard on both his daughter and his assistants.

Xion was pulled out of her bubble by the vibration of her phone in her pocket, catching the attention her teammates.

L- Dude where are you? Rox, Ven and Nam are looking for you.

Lea. She forgot to say that she wasn't going to eat with them today.

"Oh, shoot." she said aloud before quickly answering her friend.

"What's wrong? You have other places to be?" Sora asked, trying to peek at the contact name on her screen. He failed though, receiving a jab from Kairi.

"No, I just forgot to tell some people I wasn't going to eat with them today." she answered, her eyes unmoving from her screen.

X- Sorry. I have to eat with team mates to disscuss project.

L- Oh. Who're your mates?

X- Sora, Kairi and Riku.

A few moments after she pressed enter, Lea called her. She almost jumped and dropped her phone, but answered as quickly as she could.

"Xion! Invite them to eat with us!" a voice that wasn't Lea's said through the phone.

"Roxas, I thought I was texting Lea."

"You were, I just took his phone."

A chuckle came from her, which made her friend on the other end of the line chuckle back in response.

"Anyways invite them over, Xion! I'm sure Riku would like it here." Another voice spoke.

"I thought I was talking to Roxas." Xion said with a grin.

"You were." Ventus said with a smile.

She chuckled before turning to Kairi.

"Ven wants me to bring you guys over. Mind if we change locations? We can still talk about all this when we get there."

"Y-yeah, sure! We can easily take this all over there." she said, picking her stuff up. "Where is there, by the way?"

"The student cafeteria."

"What, we have that?" Sora asked, leaning towards her.

Xion nod. "You guys have never been there before?"

All three shook their heads, as Xion cocked her head sideways. They've been here for three sessions already, and they've never been there?


	2. Chapter 2

"What kind of place is it?" Sora asked, walking beside Xion.

"It's a nice place. Namine, Ven, Rox and I always meet there when our breaks align." Xion answered, checking her phone to see Lea's text answer

L-Hurray, more people! (oAo)

She smirked at her screen and walked through the cafeteria, Sora beside her with Riku and Kairi following in the back. They went through familiar hallways, and to the trio's surprise Xion turned to her left when she reached the main entrance.

"I pass by here everyday and never knew it was that close." Riku said, finally seeing the sign that said 'Student Cafeteria'.

"Awesome! So this is where it is!" Sora beamed.

They followed Xion, who knew the way like the back of her hand, and were surprised to how isolated it was. The student cafeteria was pretty much exactly the same as the school cafeteria, although it was run by students. Isa, one of Lea's close friends decided to open it in a room the school decided to renovate. They were going to destroy the room and make place for more parking, but since it held some importance to Ida he saved it, turning into a small but cozy cafeteria. Not many students pass by here yet, since it's been available for only a few years. More and more students have started coming, since the food here is better than the school cafeteria. It has a little menu, but the quality makes up for that.

"Hey guys!" Ventus greeted them at the entrance. "We saved seats for you."

"Hey Ven!" Kairi greeted her friend. "I heard Namine was here too."

"Yeah, she's sitting down with my brother."

They all made small talk and they were lead to a table in the corner of the room that was much lower than the ones at the cafeteria. The seats seemed much comfier than the ones the cafeteria. Roxas hugged Xion when she was close enough, and invited the trio to sit down with them. They had combined two tablets together, leaving enough place for at least eight people. Which was more than enough. Kairi smiled at Namine, who smiled back before she took a seat beside them. Seeing Ven taking Sora's attention, Riku found himself sitting beside Xion, who was making signs to a redhead at the cashier with Roxas. He silently took a book from his bag, knowing that there was no way they were going to work now. He glanced at Xion, who was probably the most collected one after him. Her friends distracted her as easily as him, it seems. He then glanced at the cashier that both her and Roxas were joining, who had a pretty…. Noticable hairstyle. His hair was as long as his, a few years ago and they were spiked with god knows how much gel. No one was buying anything but Xion was staring at the crossants as the guy took them out of the oven, and with a dark grin took a bite out of one in front of her. He visually saw her shoulders slump and her head drop, which made him chuckle into his book.

"Ah, Riku is looking at her too."

He turned his head to Sora, Kairi, Ven and Namine who caught him staring, making a blush come to his cheeks. Sora laughed as he tried putting his concentration back to his book, Kairi going back to their former conversation, only this time Riku was sort of paying attention.

"It's nice to see her like that though. When I first saw her two semesters ago I thought she was just an empty shell of herself."

"She did remind me of a puppet the first time I met her." Ven added, glancing at Namine. "Xion's really sweet when you warm up to her though."

Kairi chuckled. "I can see that. Is the cashier her boyfriend by the way? He's teasing her like there's no tomorrow."

Both Ventus and Namine burst into loud laughter, getting the attention of everyone in the cafeteria, of course Xion, Roxas and Lea included.

"OH MY GOD THAT WOULD BE HILARIOUS!" Ven said, holding his stomach.

The three sitting with them stared as they laughed, oddly seeing them laugh like this with them. Ven and Namine were in the same program and pretty much shared almost every class together, but not as much as the trio that were staring at them wide-eyed. For some odd reason the five had been stuck together in the same classes all the way from the middle to the end of high school, which got them to be so friendly with each other. The trio didn't know until their first semester of college that both knew Xion. They got to know each other thanks to her too.

"What? Is it that funny? I think they look cute together!" Kairi said, noticing a little too late that the three she was talking about had walked over to see what was going on. Roxas addressed a little smile to Kairi, tilting his head.

"I'm the one dating him." He said, a little blush on his face.

"What? OH." Kairi's eyes suddenly expanded to thrice their usual size, a hand coming to her mouth. Ventus and Namine burst into laughs again. The girl got up in a flash, waving her hands in front of her. "Oh my gosh I'm so sorry! I didn't know you were.. I didn't—"

"It's okay. But don't people usually think that Rox and Xion are going out instead of me and her?" Lea said, an arm going around his partner. He smirked at Kairi, who's cheeks were still red. "That's a new one."

He turned to Xion and ruffled her hair, earning a small smile from her.

"Well you kids enjoy. I gotta run for my afternoon classes."

"Right. Take care." Both Roxas and Xion said in unison before he walked away. They sat down, Riku scooting to his side so that Xion could settle her elbows on the table. As the others kept talking, she sighed. It was nice and cool here. Not too cold, but just enough. Ah, what she wouldn't give to be at the beach right now. There was this nice little island she visited when she was a child too, not too far from school. And now that she thought about that island, didn't Sora, Riku and Kairi live close to the beach?

She glanced up to look a Riku, and met his eyes. Was he…. Staring at her?

"What is it?" she asked, straightening herself before he could turn his eyes away.

"Nothing. I was just thinking about our project."

"O-oh, right." She blushed. "That's what we came here to do…"

"Doesn't look like we're gonna get any work done though." He sighed, returning his eyes to his book.

"Sorry.." he heard beside him, making his eyes focus on Xion once more.

"Why are you apologizing?"

"Well I'm the one that dragged you guys over here."

"Don't sweat it." he said, glancing to his friends. "Kairi might have looked motivated, but English was her only class of the day. I don't think she wanted to work at all."

"And Sora?"

"Sora never wants to work. Don't you know him?" he chuckled, before he wished he could swallow back those words. She doesn't. He forgot who he was talking to for a moment there. "Uh…"

"Well that part of him hasn't changed then." She said, taking her phone out of her pocket.

"Uhm, yeah. I guess so."

"A new place was discovered! Man I feel great." Sora said, his arms stretching to the sky. He skipped his way to Xion, who was walking between Ventus and Roxas, and leaned towards her by Ventus' side.

"Thank you for—"

"AAH!" the blonde screamed, almost falling on his friend. "S-s-s-sora!"

"Whoa! Sorry about that, Ven. I thought you heard me coming behind you."

With a ranging blush, Ventus went behind Xion and hugged her. "What did you need?"

"I wanted to thank Xion for bringing us to a new place today! I didn't know there was such a neat place inside the school!"

"You're welcome." Xion answered, putting a hand on Ventus' arm.

Sora smiled at her, a little bothered that she didn't smile back but brushed it off easily, telling himself that it would come in time. He felt bad that he didn't remember her much from the time when they were kids, but there was nothing stopping him from getting to know her the way she is now.

Ventus released his friend and walked beside her again, this time Sora joining the line and listening to them. They were talking about their programs, which wanted to make him back away but they quickly changed the object of conversation, since it didn't seem like they wanted to stay on the subject either. They started talking about games, which made him want to join their conversation. Although Roxas and Xion seemed to be dominating the conversation, talking about an MMORPG called Guild Wars 2. Ventus turned to Sora and explained why they were so passionate about the game.

"They met each other through the game years ago. They still play it together when they can." He said softly, making Sora's confused expression change to a brighter one.

Behind the four, Kairi slapped both her hands on her face.

"Urgh, I feel so bad…"

Namine lifted an eyebrow. "About what? If it's about Rox and Lea almost everyone has made the mistake before we told them."

"But I still feel horrible!" she protested, her hands spreading out in front of her before they fell to her side, her shoulders slumping and her head dropping.

"Kairi, they said it was fine. And look at it this way: You don't need to care if the people concerned don't." Riku said, lifting his gaze from his book.

Kairi groaned in answer, Namine giggling as she walked across the street to join the four who were waiting on the other side.

Since it was close to the end of the session, and most classes focused on reviewing what they had seen instead of new material, all seven students decided to skip together to go and get themselves a nice group meal at the nearest McDonalds.

They entered , ordered and seated themselves in a similar manner as when they were at the student cafeteria. Ven, Sora, Namine and Kairi on one table with Riku, Xion and Roxas on the other. The two blondes were conversing well with Sora and Kairi, but the other table was as quiet as can be. Xion was staring out the window, looking at who knows what while Roxas was texting Lea from under the table and Riku was reading his book, not feeling the need to start or hold a conversation. He appreciated that they didn't talk, since he had to finish this book for next week but couldn't find the concentration to read one line properly. He didn't feel up to it. He put the book down on his lap and let out a short sigh, before looking at Roxas. He was grinning as he was texting his boyfriend, and he didn't know what we would talk about if he initicated a conversation with him so he gave up on trying to talk to Roxas. He didn't know him enough anyways. He turned to the four sitting beside him and wondered if he could join in, but his face twitched when he realized that the topic of the conversation was something he didn't feel like talking about. Which left Xion.

She had her hand settled against her right hand, staring out the window. Her free hand was playing with the fries she'd bought, and she had one earphone plugged into her ear. Riku couldn't see what kind of expression she was wearing, and so didn't know what she was thinking about, or what she was looking at. She didn't want to bother her, but then again she wasn't doing anything and he wasn't either. He took a breath, and then turned to her.

"Xion."

She turned around, her blue eyes reminding him of Sora's for a second. They were brightly colorful and full of live, but the moment she saw who she was talking to they seemed to dim down. What was that about?

"Uh.. I was just wondering but, what aspect do you want to work on for Wiliam Wilson?"

Right, because they still had a story to analyse and present in front of the class. He didn't know what to talk about with her but for some odd reason he didn't feel like _not_ talking to her when she was so close.

"Have you read it yet, Riku?" she asked, her voice sounding much more different than he remembered. Maybe because the last time he'd heard her talk when she was so close was when they were children, or maybe it was because it's simply been a long time.

"I did after the teacher told us what our choices was. Unlike the other stories it seemed like it was just a name, so it intrigued me."

She chuckled, plucking her earphone out of her ear. Now her full attention was on him, and it made his heart beat a little faster. The small smile she gave him as she answered didn't help either.

"I thought so too when I first came across it. So what did you think about it?"

He tried to keep his cool and swallowed as he answered. What was this?

"I thought that it was interesting that Poe decided to try and keep the fact that the double was a double until the end. I almost fell for it."

"That so? When did you figure it out?"

"When he showed up to denounce his cheats at cards. At that time the narrator was quite far enough and anyone that followed him that far was, I thought, crazy as hell but then I considered the fact that they both resembled each other and how the narrator didn't speak much of his time without Wiliam Wilson."

They kept talking about the story, and before he knew it Xion had taken out her notebook and they were noting their ideas. Sora decided to go back to his place with Kairi, Namine and Ven to play video games at some point, and Roxas went to pick up Lea to leave those two to their schoolwork. Eventually they drifted away from Wiliam Wilson and talked about other of Poe's works that Riku had read, taking an interest to his writing. They talked and talked, both noticing every smile they managed to pull from each other with witty remarks such as "Oh yes let's assume that the cat was possessed because that made sense".

Around 3pm, Xion was startled by her phone's loud notification sound. Riku's shoulders jumped a little bit, as he peeked at her screen. It was her father asking where she was, because her class had ended and she wasn't home. He looked at her and found an indescribable expression painting her face. It seemed slightly annoyed and very cold. He felt a shiver run down his spine as she pressed the lock screen button and shoved the device back into her pocket.

"I have to go." She said, throwing her notebook into her bag. They had just warmed up to each other and one text message was enough to make her revert to what she was a few hours ago, as if the friendly conversation they had for over an hour had never happened.

"Right. Home, I assume?" he said, getting up with her.

"Yeah."

"Want me to walk with you?"

He was surprised that he himself brought it up. It was a pure stroke of luck that it happened, and maybe he had caught her in a good mood, which is why he was able to talk to her so comfortably. At the moment he filed this weird feeling as Xion having this weird power that resembled Sora's unique ability: to let their conversation partner feel like it was okay to open up to them.

He hadn't talked about something like books in a long while with someone, and certainly not for more than an hour. He sometimes would talk about comics and mangas and all that with Sora, but it wasn't the same type of literature. It only took a few hours but he felt that she like reading bricks of words like he did when she could. Her recommendations sure seemed to say so.

He clutched his big strap as she stared at him with wide eyes, thankfully not noticing that his hand was balled at his side, and probably visibly shaking. A lot. There were a few seconds of silence before she smiled up at him.

"Okay."


End file.
